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David J. Reinkensmeyer

Research Interests:
Prof. Reinkensmeyer's research interests are in neuromuscular control, motor learning, robotics, and rehabilitation. A major goal is to develop physically interacting, robotic and mechatronic devices to help the nervous system recover arm, hand, and leg movement ability after neurologic injuries such as stroke and spinal cord injury. Another goal is to understand the computational mechanisms of human motor learning, in order to provide a rational basis for designing movement training devices. Prof. Reinkensmeyer's laboratory has developed a variety of robotic devices for manipulating and measuring movement in humans and rodents. These devices are being used to investigate the role of mechanical assistance in retraining arm movement following stroke, the feasibility of providing movement training remotely using the Internet, and the role of sensory information in locomotor plasticity after spinal cord injury.

Biographical Sketch:
Dr. Reinkensmeyer received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge in 1988, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991 and 1993, with dissertation work on human control of hand movements and robotic devices for movement therapy after stroke. He was a postdoctoral fellow then research assistant professor in the Sensory Motor Performance Program, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Northwestern University Medical School from 1994 – 1998. He joined U.C. Irvine in 1998 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering.